'The Crisis,' sort of

Damn. Long story short: My president, Barack Obama, performed dreadfully in last night's big debate with Mitt Romney. There's no escaping that fact. It was a drubbing, plain and simple. And the media of course is having a field day. Even worse, I'm obliged to offer a gentlemanly hat tip to that repulsive Republican chameleon. Clearly, neither Mr. Obama nor his team anticipated the return of "Moderate Massachusetts Mitt." Talk about Etch-A-Sketch. As New York magazine's Jon Chait correctly noted, virtually every word out of Mitt's mouth was a bald-faced lie. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant stratagem. Well played, sir.

When it was all over, I suspect Obama gained a new appreciation for the words of Thomas Paine who, in the darkest moments of the American Revolution, memorably wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls." These are the times, indeed, when I really feel for "Barry," the actual human being that inhabits Barack Obama. I mean, who among us can begin to imagine what it's like to get your butt kicked in hi-def, seemingly with the whole world (plus your wife, daughters and friends) watching? Politically, Obama's dismal night in Denver is not the end of the world. But for Barry, the guy, I'm sure it must have felt like it.

On the other hand, this is typical Obama, a man exasperatingly famous for choosing Robert Frost's "road not taken." It's never an easy route. Hopefully, the president is taking solace in the rest of Paine's soliloquy: "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."